Redeemed
by Macx
Summary: M left Bond her bulldog figurine. An ugly little thing that had survived the explosion of her office. Moneypenny thought it had been meant as a sign that he should consider a desk job, maybe retirement. Bond had a different opinion. He might owe M more than she had ever suspected. Then again, maybe she had known all along. Skyfall canon-AU. Firewall series


Part of the Firewall series.

Parts:

1. High Voltage

2. Live Wire

3. Sometimes the Words are Hidden

4. Seasonal Currents

5. Redeemed

A lone figure was jogging along the Thames. Dressed in simple gray sweats, a knit hat protecting his head, a scarf around his neck and gloves on his hands, James Bond was weathering the cold air of this early morning. His breath clouded in front of his face and his skin was red, flushed from the cold.

But he felt incredibly good.

Running like that had been a problem up until a few months ago. At least this distance.

He had been fighting each mile after mile. He had felt old, his bones aching, his joints creaking, and he had been so tired. Bond remembered looking into the mirror and dull eyes in a lined face looking back at him. The preternatural had been close to breaking completely and the phoenix would have swallowed him whole.

All that was gone. He was easily able to go through the paces now.

He upped his pace a little, the rush coursing through him making him almost laugh. It was so incredible to feel… young. Reborn. Without dying.

Well, almost without dying.

Death was part of his nature and it had happened too often in the past. It had bled him dry. He had been a liability.

Bond stopped and his lungs expanded and contracted deeply. He was out of breath, but he wasn't too tired. He was twenty again in so many ways, fit and strong and in peak condition.

Because he had finally been given what his preternatural side had so badly sought. He had stability, a balance, that held together what the phoenix tore apart with each rise from the ashes. He no longer died a little more each time he came back to life. He no longer lost himself.

Because he had Q.

Theirs was a relationship based on reflected need without being needy. They didn't cling to each other. They drifted closer sometimes, when Bond felt the edge bite into his soul, when the presence of his quartermaster quieted the rough waves. Q's closeness was between their minds; not telepathic, though the connection had been formed by the only form of organic telepathy a technopath was capable of: a psychic link. It didn't enable either man to hear the other's thoughts. It was solely for Q to have the support of his anchor.

Each man had been looking for his own salvation, for a way to be what they truly were, to use their abilities without getting lost. In Q's case it was his technopathy. Bond had no real idea just why his mind was so perfectly matched to the quartermaster's, filled the hole and provided the anchor he so desperately needed. He wouldn't have described the phoenix as anyone's balance. He would have laughed at M had he known that she had suspected Q would be his savior.

She hadn't seen the completion of what she had started.

She hadn't had the chance to give him that stern look, that tiny smile, the 'I told you so, 007' expression.

Bond placed both hands firmly onto the stone banister in front of him and stretched a little as his eyes fell onto the Thames.

No, she had been killed before Q and he had come to realize what had been set into motion. Long before.

Yes, she had done something right.

He smiled a little to himself.

Damn, yes, she had done something right. She had believed in him, she had taken him under her wing and she had given him everything he needed. Maybe M had had a soft spot for him in a way, but on the other hand there had been no one else who had been harder on him.

He had mourned her death, more than he would have ever thought. M had been a hard, uncompromising woman; she had had to be in that job. But she had protected the Double-Oh section, she had protected MI6, she had protected him. His tears back in the chapel, when she had died, had expressed more than he could have ever put into words. They had been for her and only Kincaid had been witness to James Bond breaking apart just a little more, dying a little more.

At the funeral, Bond had been stone-faced and distant, keeping everyone at arm's length.

He had been there for the mandatory part, then had crawled into a dark hole and chased away the shadows with a bottle.

It had taken a while for both Q and him to understand what it was that had happened between them and when they finally had, the connection was unbreakable and… needed.

And Bond enjoyed it, enjoyed the younger man.

With a grin he started running again, trying to hide the full-out smile on his clean-shaven features at the ease with which his body moved.

Good god, he was back. Truly back.

His score at the shooting range was perfect once more. He didn't miss a target. His eye-sight was sharp and unwavering. His hands were steady. He had gone through all the paces. He had done the crunches, the push-ups, the miles of running on the treadmill, the whole exercise game. He had seen the astounded expressions of the medical teams. He had seen the raised eyebrows at the range.

One hundred bloody percent.

He was back.

Bond upped his pace and when he finally arrived at the flat he was truly out of breath and in need of a long, hot shower. He took the stairs two at a time, grinning more.

The flat belonged to Q. A hideously large place, Bond had once commented. It was located on the top floor with an open roof terrace, a huge kitchen a man like Q never used to its full potential, an office, two bedrooms and a bathroom rivaling a five star hotel.

He hadn't asked how Q could afford the size, let alone the location. He simply enjoyed the amenities. MI6 kept a flat for him, too, and most of his stuff was there, but it was hardly lived in.

A hot shower later Bond stood in the flat's kitchen, dressed only in a towel, hair standing on end and damp, enjoying an early morning coffee. He wasn't scheduled for any mission right now and M had told him to take the day off. Do what agents in their free time did.

His eyes fell on the figurine that had found a permanent place in the open kitchen cupboard over the coffee machine. A bulldog. White with the British flag on its back. M's last gift to him.

'The whole office goes up in flames and that bloody thing survives.'

It had. Like him. In a way it was a symbol of his own survival and continued existence.

A smile came over Bond's lips. Like he had told Moneypenny: it had been M's way of telling him not to give in, to keep on fighting, to stay in the field.

Like that ugly little thing he had been hard to kill, hard to destroy. He had survived. She had known about Q. She had known all about James Bond. She had known what their future could be.

And she had been right.

Bond raised his mug to salute the bulldog. "Cheers, Mum."

Sometimes he had hated her guts. Sometimes he had cursed her every step of the way. Quite often he had been bordering on insubordination. And a few times he had overstepped a boundary.

Breaking into her home had been such a boundary.

In the end he hadn't been there to save the one commander whose respect he had wanted and whom he had paid respects in his own way. She had found him; she had saved him. She had protected him.

She had given him his one and only chance.

She had forced Q on him and it had been the right call. He had trusted the quartermaster. He hadn't been disappointed. The younger man had risked his career to help him and M.

M had once remarked that emotional detachment wasn't a problem for James Bond. He had agreed. His preternatural side made sure of that and each rebirth had made it only easier. She had looked for someone to stop the vicious circle and she had found a very unlikely candidate.

Emotional detachment. It still wasn't a problem. He was a Double-Oh agent in service of Her Majesty. He could detach himself completely, even from the pain in his body. What he needed was the reprieve when he got back, when he had his handler with him in person, when he felt that cool control turn into something tinged with fiery warmth.

Vesper had stripped away his armor. She had laid him bare and delivered the killing blow. He had survived, but something had died that day.

Q hadn't needed to strip away anything. He had been there, plain and simple, resting heavily in his soul and balancing the fickle preternatural.

Vesper had been love. James had fallen for her so hard, her betrayal had hit him even harder.

Q was…

Bond gazed at the bulldog.

He had stopped loving after her death. He had sworn to himself never to give that emotion to anyone. It was a weapon against him, one that tore deeper than a bullet.

Q was…

The bulldog gazed back impassively.

James Bond couldn't love any more. He went through women and men, he gave them what they wanted and he took what he needed.

Q was…

Q wasn't like any of them. He was connected to him, to the phoenix, and it was more than any emotion he had ever felt. The physical desire was there. Strongly. He liked his feel, his taste, his sounds, everything. Q wasn't hard on the eyes, but the desire was deeper than appearances. It was a hunger that went beyond sating a need.

Q was… his. Only his.

Bond emptied the mug, smiling to himself.

His.

He would never call it love. It was such a primal feeling that 'love' couldn't be labeled to it. The phoenix couldn't love. It used what it needed to achieve its goals, but Q was never to be discarded. He wasn't to be used.

He belonged to Bond alone in the most important way and Bond belonged to him.

No, he couldn't call it love.

He pushed away from the kitchen counter and went into the living room, eyes sweeping the area automatically. Bond doubted that anyone could get in here without setting off at least a dozen alarms or being recognized as an intruder far earlier than he could set one foot into this place. Q had made sure of it. His eyes lingered on the bedroom door.

The room behind was empty. He had slept alone last night.

Q was probably still hip-deep in data extraction and compilation back at headquarters. He had shooed his agent away with an impatient gesture when Bond had dropped in after his debriefing and James had gone. He knew when his quartermaster was truly deeply engrossed, when it was real work and not just tinkering.

Time to go to work, he mused.

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His quartermaster was still at his station, still wearing the same clothes as yesterday, hair still in disarray, though he looked more than a little exhausted. Q branch was suffering from staff shortage due to a rather nasty flu virus, which had thankfully bypassed the head of the department.

It simply meant that Q was working several shifts, taking over in more areas than a sane human being should, but not only was Q branch still on time with the latest projects, he had also managed to hack the data file 006 had brought back from his latest mission. If Bond remembered correctly it was a spy satellite a private China-based conglomerate had launched into orbit. Not only China was surprised by the fact that someone operated under their radar like that.

Judging from the way the decoding was flying over the screens, Q was also using his technopathic abilities to hack deeper.

Bond frowned. He knew what that meant for the younger man.

Headache.

More likely a migraine, if the steep line between his eyes was any indication.

"Good morning, Q."

The brown eyes were slightly glazed when they flicked at him. Bond placed a fresh mug of tea down on the table, glancing at the data output. There were a thousand lines of code, all indecipherable for him, and just looking at the strings and whirls gave him a headache.

"007."

And Q sounded exhausted as well.

"Have you ever heard of the revolutionary invention of the 'break'?"

"I'm mostly done. I don't need a break."

Bond was silent. He knew that this was what Q branch did, among other things. His eyes roamed over the screen as he sipped his own coffee. There were weapon specs on a smaller screen, a long distance rifle that looked sleek and deadly and appealed to his inner killer. Something else was about communication devices so small, they wouldn't be easily detected. Q branch was attempting to use as little metal as possible. One looked like a regular band-aid and it drew Bond's attention as well.

He walked over to the screen and studied it, impressed. Bond might not be a scientist, but he knew more about some subjects than many of the scientists here would believe. Field agents weren't just the brawn, the ones to pull the trigger, trained to kill and not be killed if possible, to endure interrogation and torture.

Bond's education ran deeper than he let on, and Q knew that, of course. It was a matter of light teasing and little pokes now and then. Bond enjoyed playing dumb; Q enjoyed the faces of his underlings when one of them made the mistake of underestimating the Double-Oh.

None of the Double-Ohs were stupid killers. They wouldn't be able to survive in the world out there if all they had to do was go in, steal, kill, eliminate. Their enemies were well-versed and educated, as well as sometimes stinking rich. The agents went undercover and they fit in seamlessly.

Bond leaned against a pillar, drinking his coffee, and watched the technopath work, each movement still fluid and graceful and competent.

He stayed until Q stepped back with this little triumphant smile, eyes alight, the shadow of the headache momentarily pushed away.

He stayed as Q compiled everything and handed it to a courier who would get it to M.

And he stayed as he diligently shut down every operation and removed the hard drive to store it safely. One of his underlings took it and walked away to the storage area.

All in a night's work. Mostly.

"Take him home," Tanner said and stepped into his line of view.

Q blinked a little owlishly, now that he no longer had anything to do. Reality seemed to finally catch up to him.

"Make sure he sleeps it off, Bond."

"Yes, sir."

"I'm right here," Q snapped.

"Not much longer," Bond replied amiably.

"My department…"

"Can run without you for the next twenty-four hours, quartermaster," Tanner replied, face no-nonsense.

"I'm seriously understaffed," Q replied, not giving up without another fight. "You can't expect our projects to be on time with half my crew coughing their lungs out!"

"Q, go home."

Q straightened his shoulders. "This is my responsibility. I have to explain myself to M and the committee if…"

Tanner cut him off. "M's orders. Go home."

Bond took his quartermaster by one elbow and gave him a little push. Q glared at him.

"I am very well able to walk by myself, 007."

"Then walk."

Tanner just raised an eyebrow and gave him a pointed look, weathering the anger like it was nothing but a little hiccup in standard procedures.

Q left, but not without another sharp look. Bond felt amusement flicker through him.

He grabbed his coat and bag, every line tense and sharp and angry.

"He'll crash," Tanner said quietly. "He's been here since you started your retrieval. I know Q branch is understaffed at the moment, but there's nothing we can do about it. He's worked at more than double his capacity and I suspect that brain of his was doing twice that share."

Bond watched his partner as he closed his duffel coat and stalked out of the room, a furious expression on his face, his team moving quickly out of their boss' way.

"He probably did," the agent said quietly.

"We appreciate his… enthusiasm, but he's not the whole of Q branch alone. Get him to sleep it off. It's a miracle he hasn't shut down already."

Bond almost snorted. Q was driven. He lived for this job. And since he had an anchor and could use technopathy more freely, especially inside the MI6 network that he knew so well, he had been more experimental. But neglecting his physical needs as well would truly have him crash soon.

He walked after the quartermaster, silently catching up with the slender figure as Q checked out at the security gate.

All Bond got was a dark look.

He smirked back.

Q's glare intensified, but the lines of exhaustion were clear.

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He got him home. Q had dozed off in the car and Bond shook him gently awake when they had arrived. He walked like he was already half asleep, no longer really aware of the world. That he let Bond wrap an arm around his waist was evidence enough.

The bleary-eyed look was almost adorable and he had to hide a smile.

Q would kill him for that thought.

Bond had no doubt about that particular fact. Q was a devious, devious man and he would find a way to make his life hell.

He stumbled out of the elevator and Bond carefully caught him. He guided his overworked partner to the flat's door and pressed his palm to a palm reader that no one would be able to see as such. It was underneath the door's paneling, stealthily hidden and one of Q's pet projects. Actually, there were a lot of those around the flat, which was as secure as MI6 in Bond's eyes.

The door clicked open and he lightly pushed the other man inside.

His quartermaster crashed almost immediately when his head hit the pillow. He didn't even undress fully, just shed the shoes and his coat. His tie was loosened but not off, his shirt rumpled, his pants still on.

Bond looked at him with a fond expression and removed the tie, then unbuttoned the shirt for more comfort and peeled him out his pants.

The technopath didn't so much as twitch.

Yes, total crash, as Tanner had predicted.

No surprise there.

Bond pulled the covers over the slender form and proceeded to lower the blinds in the bedroom. Outside the world was just about to start the day. It was a sunny day, but according to the forecast rain would come in throughout the afternoon.

Bond left the bedroom, closing the door quietly after himself. He called the office and got Tanner.

"Stay with him, Bond. Keep him home. We don't need him right now."

"Understood."

He took orders seriously and this one wasn't so much an order as pleasure. He smiled as he slipped out of his suit jacket and draped it over the back of a chair.

No, no hardship at all.

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Q had slept ten hours straight. He hadn't even woken once.

Bond had stayed in the flat. It had been an almost leisurely time spent writing reports he still owed M and Tanner, reading and watching TV. The weather outside had turned frightful and he preferred not braving the rain and wind. He had warmed up Thai noodles for himself, and he had frequently checked in on Q.

His quartermaster slept on.

Bond also used the time to prowl around the flat, poke through various projects Q had running, and sneak around the contents of the laptop.

Of course Q knew he was doing it. It was a game and it was fun. Q never had sensitive information anywhere someone without clearance could easily find it. His private network was just as heavily encrypted as the servers at work. What Bond had access to were the pet projects and the world wide web. It wasn't like Q couldn't track his movements later on anyway.

And tease him about playing Angry Birds, ancient Tetris variations or a first person shooter game online against an unsuspecting college kid or teenaged computer geek.

When Q finally woke, he stumbled into the bathroom, much to Bond's amused smile. The shower came on not much later and the agent waited while he stormed an ancient citadel on some alien planet and mowed down whatever got in his way.

"You're leading them on," Q remarked when he stood behind the couch, still not really awake but trying, and Bond chuckled.

"They are kids."

"I know some of those 'kids'. This one," he gestured at the currently fifth highest player, "is a professor at Oxford. He's a mean gamer. Unpleasant winner. Even more unpleasant loser."

Bond paused his game and then opted out of the whole mission. "He also gets in the way. Cannon fodder."

Q smiled, pushing wet strands out of his eyes. The lines of exhaustion had eased a little, but it would take another night of sleep to really revive him.

He leaned over Bond and placed a kiss on the blond head, making the agent almost smile. He caught himself in time and fought back the wave of emotions. It was a small gesture, so natural, so… so… normal.

And neither man was normal.

Turning his head he caught the tired eyes. "There's hot water in the kitchen."

"Life saver," Q muttered and made a bee-line for the kitchen. It was more of a shuffle than a walk.

Bond chuckled softly and got off the couch, following his partner.

Q was leaning against the kitchen counter, a blissed-out expression on his face as he inhaled the scent of his tea. His hands were wrapped around the mug like he needed it to keep warm.

"You're off for another fourteen hours," Bond said as he joined him.

Q sighed, sounding a bit aggravated. "I'm not a child. I know my limits."

"Debatable. You overdid it."

"Hardly. I wasn't even close."

Bond's eyes bore into Q's, daring him to try that one again. The younger man stared back, defiance in his very stance. The agent reached out and brushed a caress over one temple. Q's eyelids lowered a little.

"I might not be able to feel the anchor, Q, but I know you were close to a migraine," the Double-Oh murmured. "M made the call. You stay home."

"Because you are such a prime example when it comes to following orders?"

The bite was there, but not at normal strength. It showed just how badly Q needed these twenty-four hours.

"I'm not a technopath who had set up camp in MI6's network of servers."

Q frowned.

Bond just kept looking at him, patient, like stalking prey, pale eyes challenging. Finally Q scrubbed a hand over his pale features.

Taking the half empty mug of tea out of his hand, Bond pulled the unresisting man into a kiss. Q tasted of tea and toothpaste. And he responded. He pushed a hand into the damp strands, enjoying the silky feel, the other pulling Q closer.

"Get some rest," he said when he gave in to the need to actually breathe. "Give that brilliant brain of yours a time-out. I need my handler bright-eyed and bushy-tailed."

"Are you comparing me to a squirrel, 007?"

Bond's mouth crinkled into that half-smile.

Q's eyes narrowed.

The smile widened.

"Insufferable bastard."

"I take that as a compliment."

"You would."

Bond caught the rest in a kiss that held nothing back. Q gave a soft groan of approval, fingers digging into his sides.

"Ground rules," James whispered against his lips when they parted. "No work. No abilities. Give it all a rest. Sleep."

Q burst out laughing, eyes more alive than before, sparkling with life. "Now? After a kiss like that?"

"I believe M's orders were for you to rest and recover, not exhaust yourself again."

"I think we can do both."

"We, Q?"

"We, 007. I am your handler after all."

"Oh, power play. I didn't peg you for that," he teased.

The smile was warm, filled with emotions neither Bond nor Q ever talked about. "There's a lot you don't know yet."

"We have fourteen hours for you to bring me up to date on some."

Q smirked a little. "You've had better come-on lines."

"I never have bad ones."

"That's up for discussion."

James silenced him with another kiss, careful of the mug that was a bit too close to the edge of the counter. He pushed it back with one hand, neatly inserting a leg between Q's thighs.

"I'm all up for discussions," he whispered into one ear, teething the lobe.

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It turned out to be quite an intense, detailed discussion.

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Looking at the sleeping man in bed with him, Bond contemplated the complex personality Q was, smiling to himself.

It had been a gentle encounter. No hard, rough claim, just relaxing his quartermaster.

He couldn't feel the anchor connection Q had to him. It wasn't truly a sensation, just the knowledge that the technopath could reach out to him, however unconsciously he did it, and find peace in the raging abyss that was Bond's mind. Had anyone ever told him that his very soul would provide stability for another person, James Bond would have laughed.

He was death and destruction, violence and blood and gore. He was a weapon, not a healing device.

For Q he was all and all he needed.

Bond sipped at the scotch in his hand, one hand playing with the disheveled dark strands of hair. Long, always looking like perpetual bedhead, untamed. The pale skin was smooth, unmarred, but not soft.

Q wasn't soft. There were muscles underneath that skin that Q trained. Not excessively like a field agent had to. But he wasn't a skinny nerd with no strength. Bond had found that out right throughout their first encounter in bed. He had been pleasantly surprised.

He still had to understand so much about Q. He was sometimes a riddle, sometimes an open book. He knew what buttons to push to get a reaction, though it was more of a game. Q played with him, just like Bond did with Q. It was… fun.

He almost laughed at that.

Yes. Fun. Q was fun. He brought out something in Bond that he had buried a long time ago. It didn't change him in the field, it didn't take away the edge. It actually honed it to a finer killing point. He might be a dinosaur in the eyes of his younger colleagues, but his success rate was unbeaten.

Now more than ever.

Yes, M had done something right. More than one thing. She had given Bond a choice. She had shown him that his breed wasn't dead and gone. She had trusted him and even after death she had pointed him in the right direction.

The ugly little bulldog was evidence enough.

It was them, M and 007. Old dogs, tenacious and vicious and hard to get rid of.

Q breathed something in his sleep, the words a mumble.

Bond found himself smiling softly.

He would be even more tenacious and harder to get rid of now.

"Cheers, Mum," he whispered. "And thank you. Good-bye."


End file.
